Google staff are overpaid and company must cut thousands of jobs, investor demands

Google staff are overpaid and the tech giant must cut thousands more jobs, a British activist investor has said. Sir Chris Hohn, who previously donated to Extinction

Rebellion, wrote in a letter dated January 20 that Google's 12,000 layoffs did not cut deep enough to reduce bloat at the tech giant. The billionaire founder of The

Children's Investment Fund Management (TCI) , who holds a $6bn stake in Google-parent company Alphabet, wrote to chief executive Sundar Pichai, warning: "Ultimately management

will need to go further." "The 12,000 jobs is a step in the right direction, but it does not even reverse the very strong headcount growth of 2022." Sir Chris, who

last year paid himself a record £1.5m a day, added Google should look to "address excessive employee compensation", warning the median salary at Alphabet was nearly $300,000. He

said the company should moderate stock-based payments. He said Alphabet had more than doubled its headcount over the last five years, adding 30,000 jobs in the first nine

months of 2022. "I believe that management should aim to reduce headcount to around 150,000, " he wrote, "this would require a total headcount reduction in the order of

20pc." The 12,000 job cuts at Google represented a reduction of around 6pc of its workforce. The investor said he had been in dialogue with Mr Pichai and was

"encouraged" by him taking "some action to right size Alphabet's cost base". TCI, which manages around $40bn, was launched in 2003 and has given billions to children's

charities. Among its alumni is Prime Minister Rishi Sunak. The fund's current top holding is Google parent company Alphabet.